Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Place to Be

Penina Roth and the Franklin Park Reading Series hit another home run last night, with a great event that earned a mention in the Times and featured four fabulous readers. I've been to enough readings to know that there's a difference between writing well and reading well, and last night's quartet were not only excellent writers, but engaging, entertaining readers. As my buddy put it at the first one we attended, "when someone stops reading and it's only then that you realize the place was totally quiet, they were doing it right." In yet another show of support for the Series' burgeoning success, Franklin Park has officially put them on the calendar long-term for the 2nd Monday of every month, so now there's no excuse for not being there.

It was also a great night to meet some very cool new folks and chat with the local legends, including Jay and Frank of the Breukelen Coffee House, who hinted at more big things to come at their new place and mentioned that the second episode of "From Brooklyn to the Berrics" is now available for your viewing pleasure (you'll like the DMX remix. trust me.). The Franklin Flea crowd was also out in force, including Jason and Ayelet of The Pour Gourmet, Danyel of Planet Ert, and Frank of Frank's Fantastic Book Covers and Wallets (ok, I made that name up, but Frank's stuff is great--I wrote about all three merchants in the post linked above). Jason and Danyel both mentioned that they're taking Christmas orders, so if you're looking for a great local gift for the folks back home, drop them a line.